Saturday, February 2, 2013

The New MrNussbaum.com

To the MrNussbaum.com Community,

Sometime late next week (we are hoping for Sunday), you will notice some major changes to MrNussbaum.com. We have embarked on a three-month long assessment and re-design of the site. For a long time, I have been unhappy with the design and functionality of MrNussbaum.com (which itself was re-designed in August). Over time, I found the site less kid-friendly, wrought with errors, and less attractive. Furthermore, its white background caused the advertisements on the site to really pop out, likely resulting in a less positive experience for kids, parents, and teachers. The IT firm we hired to build that site had little experience with designing for young learners and I was less involved in the process than I should have been. I hate to re-design the entire site twice in one year, but I felt it was absolutely necessary in this case.

LESSON LEARNED

With our new design, we hired a single, talented designer, and I handled most of the conversion. I believe the result will be a spectacular experience for kids with lots of new features and a friendly, engaging design specifically adapted for the young learner experience! Below are some of the major changes you will be seeing when we launch

* Beautiful design with different background images depending on the subject. The math pages will have a math-themed background, the games pages will have a game-themed background and so on.

* Effective navigation menus that turn the site inside out. With over 3,600 content pages, we believe many users never get to experience the depth of variety of the site. Now, it will be very easy to get from any page on the site to any other page on the site with our rollover menu windows that were inspired by those on shopping sites such as Target.com and Amazon.com

* Less ads. All math and language arts pages will over have a single banner on the top of the page. Other pages have colored backgrounds to lessen the impacts of ads. Like most similar sites, however, we need ads to keep the experience free for all of our users.

* We are adding grade-level pages as well. Now, users will have the option to navigate the site by grade-level (e.g. you will be able to click on "suggested activities for Pre K and K, grade 3, grade 5 etc.)

* We are adding more visibility to our Premium Subscription offering, which we believe is a transformational system that brings student engagement to a NEW level.

* We have added the Nussbaum Neurons system --- a unique trivia system for kids that will enable them to earn "Neurons" which they can redeem for educational prizes. The system only requires a code name, password, and parent e-mail address, so kids can answer questions without ever divulging any personal information. We only need the parent e-mail for permission to send prize and address to send to. The system will keep kids CONSTANTLY engaged as questions change every five minutes ---- resulting in a constant stream of potential neurons earnings. It is TOTALLY free.

These are just some of the changes you will see soon. We would love to hear your thoughts so please e-mail me with your comments! There may be some hiccups early on like broken links, so please let me know.